"

Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron,
rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features.

Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed
with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling
pair, shouting frantically:

"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, little
gentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!"

The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which
gave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the
purity of his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped both
hands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod.
It was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just
wrath of Georgie.

The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicated
by an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries and
stranger words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into the
inexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results.
The caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectly
balanced; and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurched
and went partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deep
pool in the gutter.

It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculate
person, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture.
All in the cool of a white "sailor suit," he turned aside from the path
of duty--which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt--and paused
to hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half
panted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his
ear, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why.

"Little gentleman!" shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childish
glee. "Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----"

A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled this
innocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Full
length and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. The
frightful figure was Penrod.

Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carrying
them with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was as
active a belligerent as any there.

Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward,
so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposin